


you found this, you need this

by LilyEllison



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Past Frank Castle/Karen Page, Post-Season/Series 03, Second Chances, post-The Punisher Season 2, the happy ending is a karedevil ending just in case that's confusing, very minor Foggy/Marci
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-19 21:03:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20329687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyEllison/pseuds/LilyEllison
Summary: Karen reacts to the events that end The Punisher Season 2 and is forced to re-examine her feelings for Matt.





	you found this, you need this

**Author's Note:**

> This deals with the fallout of The Punisher Season 2, so if you would prefer to avoid that, then this is one to skip!
> 
> This also contains some brief Karen/OC, so be warned if that’s going to bother you.
> 
> Thanks as always to my brave betas, [irelandhoneybee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/irelandhoneybee/) and [Quietshade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quietshade). Title from [Mariners Apartment Complex](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uFv9Ts7Sdw).

For the first time in the many months since Ellison fired her from his hospital bed, Karen was glad not to be working at the Bulletin.

It wasn’t that she ever regretted not going back when he asked. The newsroom was full of ghosts now, awash in memories best buried as deep as those scissors stuck in Matt’s chest. She wanted to forget them, forget the way his hand staggered back for hers, trailing blood. Forget those chirping, abandoned cell phones and the gore painting the walls.

Working there could never be the same now.

And she had a new life. She loved her job as an investigator. Working with Foggy and Matt again was home to her in a way that the Bulletin could never completely match.

But she did miss it — she missed Ellison, and the writing, as difficult as it could be at times, and the very public nature of what she could accomplish.

She didn’t miss it today. It was hard enough to escape the carnage on the news. Being in the Bulletin’s newsroom would make it impossible.

There were at least a dozen of them dead. All young. A couple of street gangs lured by a false ceasefire. The police were saying it could only be the work of one man.

And it felt like Frank had taken everything she’d offered and ground the pieces under his boots.

She didn’t doubt he had his reasons. He always did. But she had still been holding onto hope that after Russo, after whoever was threatening that girl...

Instead, it was this. Here was his choice, in more than just words, in the cold black and white of a skull painted on a vest. Another war.

She had failed him, she had failed him, she had failed him.

* * *

Karen was usually the first one in the office. Old habits. But today the thought of facing Matt and Foggy was overwhelming, so she put it off for as long as she could.

But she hit a dead-end in the Murrow case without one of the files she didn’t have at home, and so eventually she made her way there. She could hear them talking as she approached.

“You can’t tell me that none of these guys could’ve turned their lives around.”

“Hey, you don’t have to argue against murder to me, buddy. That’s the niche I usually fill around here.”

“I just wish I could have stopped it.”

“Just...be cool around Karen, OK? You know she has a soft spot for the guy. He saved her life again while you were...indisposed.”

“He what?” And Matt had to be incredibly agitated if he hadn’t noticed her presence yet. She coughed, much too softly for Foggy to hear from the hallway, but it was enough. They went quiet.

As she finally reached the door, she could see Foggy shuffling the newspaper away.

“Hey,” she said without making eye contact with either of them.

Matt just kind of nodded in her peripheral vision. Foggy returned her greeting way too brightly. He started to ask how she was but she cut him off with a warning look.

Then they all went to their desks and buried themselves in work.

* * *

Karen hadn’t told Matt about the hospital. About Frank.

Not before and not after, though she thought about it a million times. She hated that she was back to keeping secrets from him. But she hadn’t had time for Matt's angsting about Frank, not when she still thought she had a chance to save him. Matt couldn't see a problem and not get involved. Especially when Karen knew she might be putting herself in danger.

She was sure Matt knew _something_. About Frank, about the shootouts, about what was going on in his city. But they didn't talk about it.

Instead, it was Foggy who’d confronted her a day or two after Frank's escape, after he ran into an injured Brett Mahoney.

"Brett saw you there, Karen."

"I know," she said sheepishly.

"He suspects you helped."

"Well, he's not an idiot."

"You are, though." Foggy's voice turned icy. He wasn't kidding. "Misrepresenting yourself as a lawyer could put us in serious shit, you know that, right? Do you want me and Matt to get disbarred? This firm is barely hanging on by its toenails as it is."

She sighed. "He needed me, Foggy. He needed my help. He didn't do what they thought he did."

Foggy’s anger deflated. "I know. Brett said that, too. Also that Frank Castle saved his life." Foggy shook his head. "You have some fucked-up taste in friends. But I suppose I knew that already. Just don't pull anything like that ever again, OK?"

"I won't," she said, biting her lip.

And then Foggy pulled her in for a hug, and she let herself fall apart, just a bit. It was good to have someone know the truth, to have a shoulder to cry on.

Still, she didn't tell Matt.

* * *

Matt stayed agitated all day. It didn’t take super senses to know that. He was pacing in his office, and every time she caught a glimpse of him between meetings, his fingers were rubbing together and his jaw was tense.

Karen knew it was going to come to a head. She almost welcomed it. They’d needed to clear the air about Frank for a long time. But something icy sliding through her stomach made her dread it, too.

Matt waited until he was leaving for the night. She was tapping away at her computer, wishing she had come up with an excuse to leave the office. But what she’d needed to do most today was to hunt down records online and file documents and she wasn’t going to let her cowardice about talking to Matt get in the way of their clients’ best interests.

Matt stood in her doorway until she looked up. “Need something?” she said casually.

He launched in without any preamble. "You were...close...with Castle once. Do you know where he is now?"

She winced — she wasn’t ready for this, after all. "How is that any of your business?" Her words came out uncertain.

"Of course it's my business. He can’t just keep killing with impunity."

_Here we go_, she thought. "And how do you propose to stop him? You're not gonna kill him."

"I don’t know," Matt admitted, rubbing his hand over his stubble. "Maybe he'll see reason. He was willing to submit to justice before."

Karen shook her head, thinking of how she’d gotten absolutely nowhere with him in that hospital room. Frank seeing reason?

"Yeah, well, that was before,” she said.

"Before what?” Matt’s voice took on that condescending edge that always got her back up. “Before you? How much are you helping him?"

"Don’t be an asshole, Matt,” she said, but her tone didn’t have any bite to it. She felt so, so tired. “I don’t want him to keep doing this. I told him as much the last time I saw him."

"You mean when you helped him escape."

She closed her eyes for a moment. Had Foggy told Matt, or had he figured it out on his own?

"Frank had a bounty on his head. He was almost killed. He wasn’t safe in police custody."

"Well, he’s dangerous outside of it. How many people have to die before that’s clear?"

"He doesn’t hurt innocent people."

"I know," Matt conceded, "and we both know the system doesn't always work. But this, Karen? This has nothing to do with the people who killed his family. Frank is targeting young men who society has already failed. Whose lives have been shaped by poverty and violence. Who probably had very few options. And baiting them with a ceasefire of all things?"

She swallowed hard. For all his flaws, Matt’s compassion, his goodness, burned so bright it almost hurt sometimes.

"I've tried every way I can to get through to Frank,” she said finally. “You know I'm telling the truth. He can't give it up any more than you could."

Any more than she could. None of them could stop, even if they had different ways of going about it. She'd offered Frank her own kind of ceasefire, and he had rejected it out of hand. Rejected her and pushed her toward the man now standing in front of her.

_That Matt Murdock, does he know you’re here?_

And what had she said?

She _hadn’t_ said, "I don't love him" or even "That's over." Instead, she'd given a familiar dodge. _What does that have to do with this?_

And she got angry with herself for it sometimes, some tiny piece of her wondering if she could have saved Frank after all, if she could have actually gotten through to him, if he couldn't still see Matt all tangled around her heart.

She got angry with Frank, too, for repeating that same chorus she’d heard echoed by Foggy, by Sister Maggie, about how she shouldn’t throw away what she had with Matt. Had Frank Castle ever told _Matt fucking Murdock_ to use two hands and never let go?

But the thing that made her angriest of all, the thing that tortured her the most, was the fact that she still didn't know what she would have done if Frank had said yes.

And looking up at Matt now, as he processed her words, as he nodded resignedly and turned to go, she was less sure than ever.

* * *

Matt was going to go looking for Frank. It was as inevitable as sunrise. As breathing. He would try to find the Punisher and bring him to the police. Let Brett finally get his wish.

At least she could trust that if Matt did find him, they wouldn’t actually kill each other. But there was no way she could just sit around all night worrying about what would happen.

She needed a distraction.

“Do you want a drink as badly as I do?” she asked, poking her head into Foggy’s office after Matt’s footsteps had faded away.

“Aww, K, any other night I’d say yes. But tonight is _the_ night!”

Foggy’s smile was so big she felt herself echoing it, albeit weakly. “What night?”

“_The_ night,” Foggy said again. He pulled a black velvet box from his pocket and snapped it open. A diamond glittered inside. “It’s our anniversary, and I’m popping the question to Marci. I’m like 98-99 percent sure she’s gonna say yes.”

“Foggy!” Karen threw her arms around his neck. “She’s a very lucky woman.”

“The luckiest!” He grinned. “I’m going to do this right. Dinner and champagne and then I’m taking her to campus. The very spot we traded our first flirty insults.”

Karen laughed. “I’d wish you luck, but it sounds like you won’t need it.”

“Well, if I crash and burn, I will definitely take you up on that drink.” Foggy’s face turned serious. “Are you going to be OK?”

“I’ll be _fine_. I’ll just go home, pour myself some wine and find some trashy TV to put me to sleep.”

“OK,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning, by which time I hope to be happily affianced. Don't forget that thing we have at 9.”

“Not a chance,” she said lightly.

Her smile faded as he walked away. Somehow Foggy’s incandescent happiness only made it all worse.

She couldn’t go home. She couldn’t lie awake and wonder and wait and cringe every time she heard sirens.

And she still needed that drink.

Badly.

* * *

She ended up at Josie’s alone, sipping a whiskey neat at the bar, trying not to think about the sad, lonely woman across from her in the mirror. Trying not to think at all.

“Boyfriends aren’t around tonight?”

She looked up. The voice belonged to a guy she’d seen before many times, a guy who she’d noticed checking her out once or twice before. He was attractive, tall and muscled, with big hands and a nice smile.

She tilted her head to respond sarcastically but all she said was, “Coworkers.”

And that’s when she knew what she wanted. There was something better than booze to make her forget tonight. She was so achingly tired of her empty bed.

She didn't have to put her life on hold and just wait for someone else to figure out what the hell he wanted. She didn’t have to sit around feeling like a porcelain doll left behind on a shelf. She could make choices too.

His name was Mark and he was sweet. He was a Josie’s regular, like her, so he was a little rough around the edges, but that was nothing compared to her usual type. Just give her a big-hearted, broken man who was into violence in a big way and she was a goner. Bonus points if he’d die for her a thousand times but pushed her love away with both hands.

Mark didn't push her away. And, well, it was nice to smile and feel pretty and flirt without a half a million pounds of baggage weighing down every word. After talking at the bar for a while, she turned down his suggestion that they play pool — slamming the door hard on that particular memory before it could puncture the night — and suggested they get a nightcap at her place, instead.

* * *

Her phone just wouldn’t stop. _Ugh ugh ugh_. It was on silent mode somewhere but the incessant vibration made her want to drop-kick it into the moon.

She rolled over and grabbed for it on the bedside table. It wasn’t there. She opened her eyes. It was on the floor, with yesterday’s clothes. She leaned out of bed to pick it up.

Foggy.

_Shit_. She was running late.

And then she remembered.

_Shit shit shit_. She wasn’t alone.

Well, she couldn’t worry about that at the moment. She shot off a brief text to Foggy and raced into the bathroom. This meeting was one she absolutely couldn’t miss, not unless she wanted to be single-handedly responsible for sinking Nelson, Murdock & Page.

There was no time to do much but throw on clothes and go. Karen brushed her teeth and slapped on lipstick and mascara. She put her hair into a "deliberately" messy bun.

Then to her closet for her nicest suit, anything to distract from how put-together she was not. She saw that Mark was now sitting up in her bed, facing away from her as he stretched, but she was too frantic to stop to chat.

When she emerged from the bathroom again minutes later, he too had gotten dressed. He was waiting for her with a smile.

“Wow,” he said sincerely, and she blushed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m late for a work thing. We’ve gotta...”

“Lead the way,” he said.

She dashed out the door and down the stairs, hoping he’d keep up with her. When they emerged into the bright sunshine, she immediately lifted her hand to hail a cab.

"Can I at least get your number?" Mark was giving her a shy smile.

She felt a pang of guilt. He really was a sweet guy.

"Oh. Um, I had a nice time. But, uh, let's just leave it up to fate, OK?” She smiled back at him shakily and then jumped in the back of the cab, leaving him behind as they pulled away.

Thank goodness Foggy had started calling on his way to the bank, so she was only about 10 minutes late when she walked into the loan officer’s office.

“I’m so sorry,” she said breathlessly. “Traffic.”

They all turned to look at her. Foggy was grinning — clearly things had gone too well with Marci for him to be mad at her. But Matt—of course Matt could _tell_—

Even with his eyes covered by his glasses, he went through about 15 changes of emotion before he was able to regain his poker face. She felt her cheeks, her neck, her chest heat to flaming. She wanted the floor to swallow her up.

She felt worse than embarrassed, she felt guilty, she felt _cruel_. Which wasn’t even fair. A very long time ago, she had offered herself to Matt Murdock on a silver platter and all she’d gotten was a steaming pile of rejection.

But it didn’t matter. Watching Matt’s face close off to her, she knew now beyond any doubt that she had still _hoped_.

* * *

Over the next few days, things did not go back to normal. Matt was excruciatingly polite and professional, but not _friendly_. And, god, it hurt. He couldn't just shut her out again, not after everything, not when they'd worked so hard to rebuild on top of the ruins of their friendship.

She kept fighting with Matt in her head. Once she caught herself mumbling aloud at her desk and flushed, the words dying on her lips. The last thing she needed was Matt to overhear her verbal shadowboxing.

For all her guilt, she hadn't even done anything _wrong_. She was single. She hadn’t had so much as a date in ages. And all parties involved had been willing participants.

But everything just _felt_ wrong.

Finally, Foggy had a deposition and they were alone in the office. But as soon as she scooted her chair back from her desk, she heard Matt crossing quickly toward the main door. She clicked determinedly after him.

"Matt!" she said, catching him just in time and putting a hand on his arm so he had no choice but to come back through the doorway or wrench himself free. He sighed and yielded, taking a few steps back into the office. She shut the door, turning so her back was against it and she was facing him. But as soon as she inhaled to speak, he interrupted.

"We really don't have to do this."

"I think we do," she said, lifting her chin.

"Fine. I am very sorry that I inadvertently invaded your privacy. It wasn't a choice on my part. But it's completely your business."

"OK," she said, feeling dizzy and uncertain.

He nodded and started to retreat back toward his office.

"Why are you avoiding me, then?" she said to his back. "I feel like...like I'm being punished."

He stopped at that. "That’s not my intention, Karen. I just..." She wished he would turn back around, so she could try to read his face. "I just need time."

_It didn’t mean anything_, she wanted to say, but she held the words back. That would really make it sound like she’d been cheating on him.

His door was already closing anyway.

_Damn._

What had she been expecting exactly? Openness from the king of holding it all in?

It was clear that he wanted to just forget it. Maybe he wasn't over her as completely as she’d thought, but he wanted to be.

Now she just had to figure out a way to deal with even more wounds on her heart being freshly ripped open.

* * *

Then one day Matt didn’t show up at the office. Foggy — who was still so high on cloud nine, he was actually oblivious to their quiet drama — said Matt was fine. “Just routine Daredevil stuff. He’ll be OK by tomorrow.”

Of course Matt hadn’t told her anything. He’d barely been speaking to her.

Karen felt queasy all day. She was angry and hurt and aching, feeling like she'd lost something she couldn’t name. Eventually she couldn’t take it anymore. She had to know what was going on with him.

When she knocked on Matt’s apartment door, she wondered for a moment if he would even open it for her. When he did, her face scrunched up in sympathy. Matt was covered in bruises, his bottom lip split.

“Holy shit, what happened to you?”

“Nothing really.” He turned around and started walking gingerly into the apartment. She followed, closing the door behind her. “Finally had that chat with Castle.”

“Jesus.” Of course. Just because she hadn’t heard anything didn’t mean he had stopped. He had probably only redoubled his efforts. Her hands were shaking and she balled them into fists.

“I thought it went well,” Matt said, turning toward her once they were in his living room. “He didn’t even shoot me this time.”

"This time?" Karen’s stomach went all funny. "He shot you?"

“The same night he shot up the hospital trying to get to Grotto.” Matt made a dismissive gesture, like getting shot was nothing to him.

“So what happened?” she said around the lump in her throat. "Last night, I mean."

"He was out on a mission. I got in his way. We had another nice philosophical debate that...devolved." Matt’s lips quirked. "Needless to say, he was not willing to give the system another try."

Karen swayed on her feet, unsure what to do with herself. The idea of the two of them beating on each other — of Frank making those wounds on Matt’s face, and of the answering marks that would be on Frank’s skin — was overloading her already fraught emotions. She felt a tiny scream stuck in her throat, an urge to punch something building in her own fist.

“But at least he didn’t kill anyone last night,” Matt said.

"And how many people will die because of it?" she snapped, her anxiety and resentment boiling over. She covered her mouth with her hand.

Matt took a step toward her, his bruises looking angrier as his skin paled slightly. “You think I don’t think about that?” He let out a defeated sigh. "Is that what you want, Karen? You think I should go around killing people too?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "No, of course not. I don't want that for you."

"So it's about me. You think—what? I'm on one side of the line and you're with Frank Castle on the other?"

He said it like it was ridiculous, but her silence answered for her.

He made a little noise of surprise. "You think every time I judge Frank, I’m judging you." It wasn't a question. Matt’s voice was different now, the hard edge of weariness thawing into something gentler.

"Well, aren’t you?" she said, softly but bitterly.

“Karen," he breathed. "When I say Castle’s a killer, I don’t mean that he has killed and that makes him irredeemable. I mean that he chooses to kill because he thinks he knows who’s worthless and who’s not — and I think it’s dangerous to believe that’s justice. I know my own judgment is shit sometimes. No one should be making these kinds of calls night after night after night."

She took a deep breath. Matt still didn’t get it. He still couldn’t see the kind of person she really was. She should tell him. If this thing between them was done anyway, maybe this is what they needed — to rebreak the bone, to just start over, jagged and new.

"You don’t understand,” she said. “I don’t regret it. Not—not completely. You should know that about me."

"What?"

"I—I’m glad that James Wesley is dead. I’m glad he can’t hurt anyone else."

She wasn’t sure if her words were actually echoing around the apartment or if that was just in her head. She could feel the intensity of Matt’s senses focused on her. Well, he wouldn’t find a lie if that’s what he was looking for. She couldn’t quite breathe, though.

When he spoke, his voice was quiet and steady. "And I don’t lose much sleep over the guy I put in a coma, or any of the ones I hurt more than I needed to. I do, however, lose sleep over Fisk. Sometimes, when I dream about him coming after you or Foggy, I think killing him would have been worth any cost. I...was ready to do it." He rubbed a hand over his face. "I’m not better than you, Karen. Whatever line you've created between us in your head, that's the only place it exists."

All she could do was look at him.

* * *

Karen barely slept that night. It all kept spinning around in circles in her head. Matt haunted her, his bruised face and his wounded expression. And in every single dream she had, she lost him.

She eventually gave up, brewing a huge pot of coffee and starting in on work, even though it was Saturday. She had managed to get lost in other people’s problems for several hours when there was a knock on her door.

Matt was there, his glasses and cane in place like a protective shield. Just seeing him meant so much to her that she wanted to cry.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything,” he said at her total lack of greeting. “I just wanted to see if you were OK. You left pretty fast last night..."

"I'm sorry about that,” she said, finding her voice. “I just had a lot to think about. Do you—do you want to come in?"

"Only if that's OK with you. If you're expecting company, or—"

"No, I'm not," she said, opening the door wider and then closing it behind him. "The other night, that wasn't...I mean, I'm just trying to move on...like you are." She turned around in time to catch the surprise on his face.

"You're...oh." An awkward silence filled the space between them. When he spoke again, his voice was very soft. "Uh, and that's what you want?"

She moved her mouth but no words came out at first. "I thought you did. You—you haven't said anything."

He chuckled without humor. "I had no right. Not after what I put you through... I’ve been lucky that you tolerated me in your life at all."

"Is that really how I make you feel? Like you’re just being tolerated?"

"No—"

"Because it's hard to know sometimes. Especially when you stonewall me."

"I wasn't trying to...I just...” Every word seemed physically painful for him. “I wasn’t dealing well with the thought of losing you again."

"I’m still right here.”

“You know what I mean,” he said, and her heart fluttered. He smiled bitterly. "And that wasn’t even the worst of it. God, how bad do you have to be before the Punisher looks like a better option?"

"Hey. Frank is still a good man. Someone worth saving." She shook her head. What the hell had the two of them talked about? She didn’t even want to know. "But I wouldn’t have...I'm not going anywhere, Matt. Even if you keep pushing me away."

"It’s not like I’m alone there.”

"What?"

"You've been pushing me away, Karen." He pulled off his glasses. "Not telling me about what happened with Frank...And last night...it was like you were daring me to—to condemn you. And I won’t."

She buried her face in her hands. Oh, god. He was afraid of her abandoning him, so he shut her out. She was afraid of him rejecting her, so she pushed him to... _Shit_.

They were quite a pair.

"Why does this have to be so hard?" she asked, trying to smile.

He swallowed and fidgeted with his hands. "Probably...because we care."

His words landed heavy in her chest. "Yeah," she agreed quietly. She ran a hand through her hair. "Neither part is going away, I don't think. The fear part or the caring part."

"So I guess we just have to decide which part is stronger."

She felt tears building in the back of her throat.

"No matter what, though,” Matt said, “even if this is...beyond repair...I just hope you can see that you’re so much more than you give yourself credit for."

He put his glasses back on and started for the door. She was grateful that he wasn't going to push it, that he didn't need an immediate answer. He had to be able to tell that she was teetering on the edge of panic.

But there was one thing she did need to tell him. She forced herself to say, "Matt?" and he turned back toward her. "I could say the same for you."

He gave her a tiny nod of acknowledgment and then he was gone.

* * *

Karen woke up gasping, sitting straight up in her bed.

The dream had started the same as always. Midland Circle. She was down on her knees in the wreckage, nothing but desolation on all sides. Matt was somewhere below her, trapped. She knew he was there. He had to be. She was digging desperately with her hands, clawing and crying and calling his name.

But this time, for the first time, he answered. He was there, above her, casting a shadow in the sunlight, wearing his red suit with no mask. He helped her to her feet, wiped the tears from her cheeks, kissed her battered hands.

And then they were in the office, just a normal day. She was laughing at something he’d said and he was smiling at her like the first warm breeze of spring.

She could still see the look on his face now, as she sat tangled in her sheets, trying to catch her breath. Before she could second-guess herself, she grabbed her phone from beside the bed and tapped out a text.

_The caring part is stronger._

She hesitated for just a second and then hit send. It was only then that she realized it was almost dawn. Even vigilantes would be in their beds at this hour. That meant long hours of waiting for him to respond with nothing to do but lie awake and stress about his answer.

She got out of bed and headed for the kitchen. Maybe a cup of tea would help her pretend her way to calm. She moved around carefully, deliberately, trying to help her body relax.

She had just taken a first warming sip when she heard a tapping sound on one of her windows. She jumped, startled, and a bit of the tea sloshed over the rim of her mug. She didn't care. She put the cup on the counter, already forgotten, and rushed to push open the lock, her heart in her throat.

She slid the window up and Matt climbed through. He pulled off his mask as soon as he was standing inside.

"Karen,” he said hoarsely, and she rushed into his open arms.

“I thought it was over. I thought I lost you,” he murmured. “Oh god, I thought...” His hand was stroking her face, his thumb brushing her lips. She was breathing hard, overcome with emotion. She leaned forward and kissed him carefully around the cut on his lip.

Her own voice came out a whisper against his cheek. “I didn’t think you wanted...”

“More than anything,” he said, kissing her again, harder, heedless of his injury, his fingers curling gently around the side of her neck, her pulse beating into his hand. She put her own palm over his heart.

And for the first time, she could truly believe that she had it. That she had everything.

She pulled back to look at him in the rosy morning light. He was kind of a mess — his lip looked ready to bleed, his eyes were puffy, his face was bruised — and he was infinitely precious.

“Matt,” she said, “just...just don’t let go.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I've been working on and off on this one since April, so I'm really glad to finally have it done.


End file.
